Herein is described a sublevel of the Deep Halls, the site of our dungeon exploration in Dreaming Amon-Gorloth. Numbered encounter areas refer to the keyed map in “Keys to the Deep Halls.”

A century ago, after the war in which the Radiant Host eradicated the dreaming priests, the nomarch ordered the entrances to the Deep Halls blocked. Departing troops broke the lintel and provoked a cave in, which barricaded the entrance under rubble. To further discourage entry, the nomarch had engraved a warning message on the cliff face. The dreaming priests, on their inevitable return, made a way through the rubble. They left the message intact.

1. Entrance

A spur of the track leads to a level yard of packed dirt. Beyond it, a hill rises in an abrupt slope. A narrow passage opens in the hillside, dark, like an empty eye. On the ground, a long, carved stone, broken in three, edges the entry, which is shored up by a wooden beam on two posts. Outside to the left, in the face of a rock cliff, is carved an inscription:

DANGEROUS DUNGEON
DO NOT ENTER

Inspecting the broken rock at the entry, characters may note the following:

• It is a lintel carved from granite.
• The lintel bears a maker’s mark: the silhouette of a stepped pyramid.
• (Dwarves only) The lintel’s exposed breaks and the inscription on the cliff face are the same age, several decades old and much younger than the lintel itself.

Through the doorway, the corridor is 15' wide. The barrel-vaulted ceiling is 10' high. On either side, murals, painted in once-bright hues, depict hyena-headed humanoids dancing, naked, in two rows, above and below a wavy line. Below the line, the humanoids all face down the corridor southwest. Above the line, they face the opposite direction, northeast.

The murals are trimmed at top and bottom in a moon-disc motif. The bottom edge shows the moon’s waning phases, from full to new. The top edge shows the waxing phases, from new to full.

North Wall: A small stone, painted dark within a lower half-moon, opens the secret door when pressed.

Common Knowledge and Research

Information that is commonly known among the general populace, given under the heading Common Knowledge, should be given out as characters interact with the environment. Common knowledge often concerns the present culture.

Information about the previous culture may require research. I’m working on a simple system for use when PCs conduct research in the base town at the temple archive and the magic-user’s guild library. Information that may be learned through this method is noted in each room accompanied by the domain(s) to which it belongs: arcane, history, or religion.

Common Knowledge:

• Hyena-headed humanoid figures escort the soul of the dead to the underworld and back to the world of the living, where it is reborn.
• The soul’s journey is completed in a day.

Research:

In contemporary writings, the Amwan Culture refers to that of the peoples who lived during the time of Amon. (See “the Myth of Amon-Gorloth.”)

• In the Amwan Culture, the soul travels to the underworld and returns in one month (religion).
• The Amwan Culture divides a lunar cycle into 12 phases, with five phases between each full and new moon (arcane, religion).¹

2. Reliquary

A flame burns in a rough-hewn depression in a central floor stone. It casts light in a 15' radius to fill the room. Fashioned in the north and west walls are twelve niches, six in each wall, at chest height. In nine of them, a skull is set, upside down.

Torches, lanterns, and light and continual light spells do not shed light in this room.

Upon reinvesting the dungeon, the dreaming priests found the decaying remains of the Nine Companions who fought aside the Ardent Champion Menturoc in the redoubt’s storming. The priests removed the heads, boiled them to remove remaining flesh, and mounted them upside down in niches.

They carved the depression in the central stone, cast continual darkness on the stone, and bid a fire kobold [described later] to protect the skulls.

Continual light cast on the central stone dispells the continual darkness.

If any skull is disturbed, the fire kobold extinguishes itself, leaving the room in darkness. The kobold then causes mayhem in its invisible state.

Fire Kobold (1)

Common Knowledge:

• Decapitation prevents the soul’s return from the underworld.
• Turning its skull upside down prevents the soul’s rest.

3. Grand Entry Hall

The dimensions of this chamber are lost beyond torchlight. Footfalls echo off unseen walls. Just within range of illumination, a wide central column, engraved and painted, reaches into the darkness.

Out of sight, two more columns in a line beyond the first support the vaulted ceiling 90' up. Painted engravings on each column show lunar phases and a symbol on the near and far sides. They also show, wrapping around the column, various scenes with human and non-human figures.

West Door: Crude scratches shape the form of a scarab beetle on this door. Smell of offal.

South Door: Skillfully engraved into this door and embellished with inlaid silver is a glyph in the form of two diamonds, one inside the other. Close inspection of the door reveals a faint odor of lavender and ammonia.

Hartshorn Gas: When the south door is opened, gas spews from above. It smells of lavender and ammonia. Any characters in the doorway must save vs. Poison (+4 on the dice) or die. Dreaming characters within 20' must save vs. Spells or wake. [The states dreaming and waking are explained later.]

Wandering Monsters

¹ In our world, we generally describe eight lunar phases, with three phases between new and full moons. In naming the additional phases, I split each gibbous and crescent phase in two and add prefixes lesser and greater.

Urgent cries in distant dark. Dying echoes, fading into empty space. A spark—a flash of light, flickering orange. Columns rise high above, stabbing gloomy shade. Tunnels twisting out of sight.

Stumbling, lost, behind lumbering figures, purple-cloaked. Under arch, stepping down. Between close walls, beneath heavy vault, cauldrons crouch on red coals. Chanting priests raise green goblets to a shadowed image. All eyes are closed…

Many are troubled by such nightmares. Some wake, seeking respite. Some lie yet in fitful sleep. Those who talk about them report the nightmares always end with a vision of the Sign of the Oneiromancer.

—Boxed text reprised from “Dreaming Amon-Gorloth.”

The Sign of the Oneiromancer

A glyph in the form of two diamonds, one inside the other, marks the entrance to this public house. Until recently, it was a quiet establishment, doing enough business but not over crowded. Since the nightmares began, townsfolk come here, seeking solace. They share their dreams and quench their fears in barley beer. Some stay through the night, when they can’t bear to surrender consciousness to the horror.

The Sign of the Oneiromancer is an inn, where adventurers can rest between expeditions. In its upper rooms, characters may sleep in relative comfort and safety. In its ground floor entertainment hall, they may restore themselves, meet prospective hirelings, and gather and spread rumors, true or false, about the nearby dungeon.

Oil lamps cast a yellow glow in the long, low hall. Wooden rafters support mud brick construction. Plaster walls bare painted scenes of the Solar Goddess on one side and the Sun King on the other. The warm, still air is filled with scents of citrus and flowers and fresh baked bread.

Patrons crowd around low tables, sitting on floor cushions. Some, in pairs or groups, play games: senet, mehen, and hounds and jackals.

Others share a meal. They eat with their fingers: grilled fowl, glistening with grease, roasted vegetables and green scallions, and date cakes drenched in honey. With long knives, they cut thick slices from hot loaves of wheat bread. They drink beer from ceramic cups and talk in subdued tones and close whispers.

At the hall’s far end, a harpist plucks a languid tune. A trio of dancers bestows lily flower collars to new comers and offers a dance in exchange for coin.

Background

At campaign start, player characters who live in town, or who have spent a night there, are troubled by the nightmares. All PCs are familiar with the Myth of Amon-Gorloth, and they are aware of the following legend. In addition, each PC might begin play knowing one rumor from the table below. Otherwise, rumors may be learned through interaction with townsfolk.

Legend of the Dreaming Priests

Long ago, evil cultists, called the “dreaming priests,” built a dungeon in the Shunned Cairns. The dungeon is known as the Deep Halls, and within its depths, they sought to revive a long dead god, until the Sun King’s Radiant Host destroyed the cult. Details of the story are lost to history, for to talk about the priests is to wake them from dream.

Rumors

The following rumors circulate in town and especially at the Sign of the Oneiromancer. Some of them are true.

“I’m starting with the most deadly dungeon level configuration and an overly generous treasure sequence to see if it’s possible that player characters might survive to reach 2nd level. If it doesn’t work, it won’t take long.”

—from “Dreaming Amon-Gorloth”

After the second foray into the Deep Halls, in which the party descended briefly to Level 4, they hauled out goodly treasure. Four characters advanced to 2nd level. One of those, the party leader, is blind, and two party members did not survive.

The Gygax Tax or Where Does All the Treasure Go

Different methods to reduce excessive wealth are discussed under the heading Wealth Extraction in “Running the Campaign.” Our recent delve yielded sufficient treasure to make an example.

Money Changer

All told, the party ported 7,600 coins of ancient mint—in silver, electrum, and gold—and two bejeweled necklaces out of the dungeon storeroom-cum-den of thieves.

The coins are declared at the town gate and taken to the money changer. Their total value, 3,375 g.p., is taxed 10%. The jewelry, worth 4,000 g.p., is not taxed.

Gygax suggests a 1% import duty on goods, such as jewelry (AD&D DMG, 90), but in the campaign we ignore single-digit percentages. The full value of gems and jewelry may be bartered. The money changer collects a 10% luxury tax should they be sold for coin.

So while experience is calculated from the full gold.jpgece value, the party comes away with 4,000 g.p. in jewelry and 3,038 g.p. in coin of the realm.

Restorative Spells

Hathor-Ra escorts Melqart to the temple. They learn that a cure for blindness requires 16,000 g.p.

Blindness from cobra’s spittle may be healed with a cure serious wounds spell (house rule). With the overly generous treasure stocking method, a restorative spell costs its level squared times 1,000 g.p.

Bank

Melqart, cursing ill luck, and Hathor then proceed to the bank, where they rent a small coffer (10 g.p.) to store the gold and jewelry.

Professional Expenses

From their shares, Hathor-Ra tithes 176 g.p. to the temple, and Melqart joins the Magic-User’s Guild, paying 500 g.p. in annual dues.

Upkeep

Upon receiving experience point awards, each PC immediately pays 1% of earned XP—that is, earned during the adventure, not total—in g.p. for upkeep. This includes room and board. PCs pay upkeep for their hirelings.

I pull this rule from OD&D (Vol. 3, 24). Though beneath our 10% threshold, taking a percentage from earned XP is less tedious than a daily or weekly payment.

Inability to pay one’s upkeep in full indicates a level of impoverishment, reflected in the character’s standing and reputation, i.e. NPC reactions. Failure to pay a hireling’s upkeep provokes an additional loyalty check.

I find upkeep’s impact on town encounters to be worth the effort. If a group feels otherwise, upkeep is easily ignored. In that case, we assume that PCs have in pocket whatever small sums are necessary for daily needs.

Company Charter

After a good night’s rest, Melqart considers the options. He proposes that the party form an adventuring company. The party agrees that Melqart will manage the company, with a hired assistant, until his sight is restored. Thereafter, the manager role will rotate through party members.

Treasure division:

• All treasure obtained on adventures belongs to the Company.
• Monetary treasure is divided into shares, which are disbursed by the Company.
• Adventuring party members earn one share, while the Company Manager earns one-half share.
• Magic items are distributed to individual members to the Company’s best benefit.

Company Manager responsibilities:

• Submits to member oversight.
• Keeps financial records.
• Directs research in the absence of the party leader.
• Organizes rescue parties.

The Company pays:

• Necessary adventuring equipment, including that for hirelings.
• Hireling advances on share.
• Restorative magic to heal injuries suffered while on party business.
• Research, magical or scholarly, conducted for party benefit.

The Company does not pay:

• Upkeep.
• Hireling fees or bonuses.
• Professional expenses (tithes, guild fees, gambling debts).
• Any other extras.

Current Party Composition

The following character records include those for the deceased, three new hirelings, and Melqart’s assistant Ur-Zaruund.

The party is not overly wealthy, I think, for 2nd-level characters. Especially considering that they are essentially 16,000 g.p. in debt to the future restoration of Melqart’s sight.

The scene continues from the opening of “Holmes on a Coin’s Weight.”

Melqart and Hathor-Ra loaded treasure. The medium held a sack open at the hem, while the acolyte dumped the contents of an iron coffer into it. Gold coins rattled and clinked, like a stream of metallic pebbles.

Plate-armored Iltani, with sword and shield, stood over a sharper. The thief, bloody hands bound and tethered to an ankle, crouched beside a wall. The charmed harpy fed on three others in the room beyond a door, which was guarded by Zagros, also armor-clad with sword and shield.

The party’s own thief, Idan Thyrsus, lay face down. A dagger protruded from between shoulder blades.

Coins sacked, Melqart and Hathor strung necklaces around their necks, sequestering the jewels beneath robe and tunic.

Iltani, Zagros, and the hobbled sharper would each carry a large sack, Melqart a small. Hathor, otherwise unburdened, would port the corpse of Thyrsus back to base town, where she hired him the previous day.

“Wait,” said Melqart. “Where’s the papyrus?”

Hathor raised her eyebrows. “The oneiromancer said it would be in this room.”

“Maybe here…” Melqart approached the frieze, pushing aside an empty coffer with a foot.

The frieze covered the wall up to fifteen feet high under the barrel-vaulted ceiling. A line of life-size human figures, one foot before another, faced a larger figure, seated on the left. The upright figures were male and female. Males were bare chested, wearing only kilts. Females wore long gowns to the ankle. All were barefoot and held some object in both hands before them: the first a scroll, the second a tall jar, followed by a cornucopia, a jug, a bowl, and so on. The seated figure, male, wore a kilt. Two concentric circles haloed the head. Straight lines, like rays, protruded from the outermost.

Hathor stepped closer with the torch. Melqart felt the relief with fingertips, tracing outlines in smooth alabaster.

“It’s a procession,” said the cleric. “Subjects bring offerings. The king’s halo represents Gor’s double crown.”

“I don’t see any—” Melqart’s fingers slipped over the lip of the tall jar. “What’s this?” He rapped on the jar with a knuckle. It rang hollow.

Melqart gripped the jar by the lip and held it at the base. A tug revealed a crack between jar and relief. Wiggling the jar from side to side, he pulled, and it gave.

“Give me a hand,” said the magic-user.

Hathor lay the torch on the floor. Shadows leapt high up the wall. Together they pulled the jar from the niche and set it down on the floor.

Hathor went for the torch. Melqart stood up to peer inside the jar. From the shadow within, a cobra’s head raised to meet his gaze. Its hood spread, black eyes glinted, and it spat into Melqart’s face.

The medium recoiled with a grunt. Hathor struck out at the snake. The mace came down hard on the jar lip.

The cobra spilled from broken alabaster, coiling its three-foot length. Iltani and Zagros advanced from either side. The serpent soon writhed in two parts.

“Are you well, Melqart?” said Hathor.

Melqart blinked his eyes, opening wide. “I can’t see.”

The blind Melqart and the hobbled sharper in tow, the limp Thyrsus over a shoulder, Hathor-Ra led the party up to the dungeon’s first level. There, she rendered the papyrus, a rolled page with magical writing on it found in the jar, to the witch who called herself an oneiromancer.

Getting Into the Deep Halls

Dreaming Amon-Gorloth is a dungeon and wilderness adventure campaign for character levels 1 to 9 intended for use with any old-school edition of the world’s most superlative role-playing game.

• The Myth of Amon-Gorloth
• The Sign of the Oneiromancer
• The Shunned Cairns
• 2A. An Unheeded Warning
• 2B. Menturoc, Ardent Champion

The should-be simple exercise of keying rooms is already a nightmare. The dungeon, consisting of 180 encounter areas, goes down seven levels. Each level is divided, by contiguous rooms, into 51 sublevels.

The first four dozen encounter areas by sublevel serve to demonstrate its twisted quality.

A party might enter the dungeon and proceed immediately along 3. Grand Entry Hall (2A.) down to area 34. Nightmare Bazaar (4B.), or they might follow at least five other circuitous routes to the same destination.

Your Favorite Monsters from Holmes

I have worked out much of the campaign scenario, and Melqart and his “Company of the Blind Seer” have explored several chambers close to the entrance—as far as 57. Chamber of the Processional (3F.).

I’m taking your suggestions for favorite Holmesian monsters to place in sublevels and particular halls and chambers in the Deep Halls of Amon-Gorloth.